When Did the ‘Fast and the Furious’ Movies Get Great?

This weekend, the 8th installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise chases a deadly submarine into movie theaters across the country. Improbably, they’ve become some of the most reliably excellent big-budget action films on Hollywood’s roster, second only to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of moneymaking combined with critical goodwill. Without sugar-coating it, this would have seemed insane to observers in the summer of 2001 when the first The Fast and the Furious movie came out.

But that’s what makes the Fast franchise such a fascinating one, is that it didn’t just start big and then start coasting. The franchise became good almost when nobody was looking. All of a sudden, “You know what? I really like those Fast and the Furious movies” became “let’s spend two weeks hyping the new Fast and the Furious movie!” There are fan theories and slash fiction and casting wish lists and articles about whether the new film is following the internal logic of the others. Internal logic! Of the 7th sequel to a movie where Ja Rule was featured in the original trailer!

So honestly, how did we get here? If the Fast and the Furious movies are great now (they are), when did that happen?

The following is a ranking of the 7 previous Fast and the Furious movies in order of the likelihood that they were the point when the franchise got great. From least likely to most likely.

'2 Fast 2 Furious' (2003)

Is This When the Fast and the Furious Movies Got Great? God, no!

2 Fast 2 Furious is the worst film in the franchise, and I don’t think anyone will fight me on this. It’s the only film in the franchise without Vin Diesel in it, which is like calling a movie the only film in the Beauty and the Beast franchise without Belle in it. It’s also the only movie in the franchise directed by an Oscar winner, though it feels wrong to pile on John Singleton at this stage of the game.

The only good thing about the movie is that it introduced Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris as Roman and Tej, two characters who would eventually become cornerstones of the later Fast films’ appeal. But honestly, you might as well have just brought them into Fast Five cold for all the continuity the new films have to this one.

'Fast & Furious 6' (2013)

Is This When the Fast and the Furious Movies Got Great? “Got” good? No.

It would be hard to make the case that the Fast movies suddenly started getting good at 6. Everything that’s great about Furious 6 — the all-star cast, the ever-more implausible stunts, the sense of big-budget fun grounded by themes of family and loyalty — was introduced in Fast Five (and executed a bit better too).

The one argument you could make in favor of Furious 6 as the point it all started getting good is if you’re a Han/Gisele hard-liner, and seeing the movie where they both meet their fate was what finally convinced you that this was a franchise with the power to both thrill you and move you to tears. But honestly, if you’re that much of a Gisele/Han fan, Furious 6 is never going to be your favorite.

'Furious 7' (2015)

Is This When the Fast and the Furious Movies Got Great? Honestly, what would have taken you this long?

Similar to the logic of why Fast & Furious 6 can’t be the moment the Fast and Furious movies got good, Furious 7 is similarly a continuation of the Fast Five trajectory. With one major exception. If you thought that the one flaw in the Furious universe was that its characters’ relationships to each other were too surface-y (and if you somehow didn’t care about Han and Gisele, you monster), then yes, I could see where Furious 7 is the one that clicks for you. The nakedly emotional way the film deals with Paul Walker’s death as more than just a logistical hurdle but as an existential blow to the whole ethos of the franchise takes the film to another level. The dreamy, waking-life feel to those final 15 minutes gives the film — and by extension the franchise — a note of grace that it never had, or ever really had sought out.

'The Fast and the Furious' (2001)

Is This When the Fast and the Furious Movies Got Great? Nope.

Anybody who tells you that the Fast and the Furious films were great from the break is trying to sell you something. The original film was a vehicle (no pun intended) for Vin Diesel’s ascendant career, with Paul Walker along for the ride (no pun intended) as the requisite MTV-approved pretty face. Don’t let anybody talk to you about themes or ethos or living life a quarter mile at a time. This was the movie Rob Cohen made between the awful The Skulls and the awful xXx.

There is nostalgic value in going back to The Fast and the Furious. Nostalgic value in seeing how young everybody was, how ground-level the stakes were, how much road there was (no pun intended) ahead of everybody involved. Some had more road than others, and if you think about that for too long, you’re gonna get a lump in your throat, but don’t let that lump fool you into thinking there was greatness in this series from the beginning. Fast cars, dumb characters, hot chicks. That was the movie it its initial incarnation. Greatness came later.

'Fast & Furious' (2009)

Is This When the Fast and the Furious Movies Got Great? …Not quite.

Fast & Furious is kind of a no-man’s-land film. After seeing the series (somewhat unjustifiably) bottom out in Tokyo Drift (more on that in a second), the fourth installment was a back-to-basics movie. Diesel and Walker were paired up together for the first time since the original movie, a re-teaming that surprised a lot of people with how much they were looking forward to it. This is also the movie that shuffles the franchise timeline via the character of Han, who was introduced in Tokyo Drift as a former ally of Dom’s but who died during the events of that film. Han was BY FAR the best character from that movie, though, and in a move that would set the template for further instances of caring less about logic and more about putting out the most fun movie possible, the timeline got yanked back by a few years and Han was back on the team.

As a film in and of itself, Fast & Furious is … fine. It drags. It gets bogged down in cartels and double-crosses. It kills off Letty as a stakes-raiser in a way that feels very antithetical to the care with which the franchise treats members of the “family.”

In many ways, Fast & Furious is kinda meh so that the subsequent movies could be so great. It finds the footing of the franchise so that a huge musclebound freak of a pro wrestler could soon show up to stand on its shoulders.

'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift' (2006)

Is This When the Fast and the Furious Movies Got Great? You could make the argument.

Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is easily the most contentious of all F&F movies, with some fans deeming it the best of the series, some fans saying its the worst, and most fans with vary degrees of hot takes about why they feel that way. After 2 Fast 2 Furious was such a stinker, the fact that the third film re-branded itself, left the United States entirely, and featured only the most obligatory cameo from one of the original film’s leads (Diesel shows up at the end; Walker’s not involved at all) gave this film an air of a direct-to-video spinoff that somehow stumbled into theaters.

Here’s the thing, though: as rough as the edges of Tokyo Drift are (and … they are, particularly when it comes to the Lucas Black character at the film’s center), this was the first film in the franchise with Justin Lin in the director’s chair, and the fact remains that Justin Lin was the guy who changed everything. Suddenly, the action scenes weren’t just flashy, they had personality. The characters began to feel honestly connected to one another. There was some verve to the filmmaking, some chutzpah. It may not have all come together right away, but if you’re looking for the moment where the Fast franchise started getting good, you could do worse than pinpointing the moment that Justin Lin signed on.

'Fast Five' (2011)

Is This When the Fast and the Furious Movies Got Great? YES.

After two movies to set things up, Fast Five is where Justin Lin blew the doors off the franchise and turned what to many looked like the zombie husk of a once semi-interesting MTV movie and made it into the most fun action franchise on the planet.

What makes Fast Five so good? The first and most important thing was that Lin assembled the all-star team of Fast films past. Diesel and Paul Walker were at the head of the table, Tyrese and Ludacris were the prodigal sons of 2 Fast, Han was the representative from Tokyo, Gisele was back after getting introduced in the 4th film. And as the cherry on top, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson hopped onboard as the federal agent looking to take the team down.

Assembling the team was one thing, but Lin went immediately to the task of making this group a family. One year before The Avengers made the Marvel heroes the top all-star team at the box-office, Lin had done so with a crew that had more history (and, not for nothing, diversity) than Marvel could ever manage. All this AND the film raised the stakes on action sequences considerably. That vault chase scene may never be topped in the history of the franchise.

Here’s the other reason why Fast Five is the moment the Fast series got great: you could just start with this one and be totally fine. There’s good stuff in those first four Furious movies, but honestly? You don’t really need them. Fast Five is when the family becomes a family. The gang’s all here, and The Rock is in hot pursuit. Greatness defined.